Shine
Shineby Lauren Myracle
When her best guy friend falls victim to a vicious hate crime, sixteen-year-old Cat sets out to discover who in her small town did it. Richly atmospheric, this daring mystery mines the secrets of a tightly knit Southern community and examines the strength of will it takes to go against everyone you know in the name of justice. (goodreads.com)
Much earlier this year, I was meandering through the Chapigo website and happened to look at the "Others also looked at" section of whatever book I happened to be looking at at the time. Shine was one of the books in that suggestion list, as well as Winter Shadows and The Divided Realms, Book 1. For the life of me, I can't remember WHAT I was looking at that resulted in the above books being suggested, but I went on a wishlist adding spree and then promptly forgot about them.Cut to earlier this month when there was a big ol' hubbub about Shine and a National Book Award nomination, or rather, lack of nomination. To be honest, I hadn't put the two books together until I saw the cover and said "Hey, waitagoshdarnminute!"When I happened to check the Chapigo website last week to see if there were any copies of Beautiful Chaos in stock (because I was allowing myself ONE book purchase as a cheer me up), I was happy to see that they had featured Shine on the main page of their What's Hot in Teen Books. I clicked on the book and to my delight saw that they had a copy in stock at the same store I was about to go to for my copy of BC. (Never mind the fact that I might have walked out of the store with FOUR books and a magazine, as well... *cough*)Because I am a slave to the media (not really), I read this book with much more of a critical eye than I would have had it not been mistakenly nominated and then withdrawn from the awards. Of course I wanted to see if this book had award potential.Guess what? It does.There was something about the way the story was told, written and played out that reminded me a lot of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird - and not just because it was mentioned in the story. The "risqué" subject (hate crime, attempted murder of a gay teen) and lazy southern feel to the book was a beautiful mix of opposites.The characters were all diverse and had a lot more depth to them than originally thought. I love that Cat was somehow able to glimpse more than what was on the outside of many of the teens in her town as she tried to get to the bottom of her friend's beating. I, too, found myself surprised by many of the characters as they were much more than they seemed from the onset. I loved that the author was able to change your mind about her characters as the story unfolded.The guilt at shutting out her best friend a few years before the crime managed to push Cat out of the protective shell she'd created around her since her own Big Secret experience. I think this was also a coming of age type story in the way Cat discovered she was stronger than she thought and she cared more about those around her and what happens in life than she thought.My favourite character, besides Cat, was eleven-year old Robert. I was certain I was going to dislike him from her first encounter but he grew on me, much like I think he grew on Cat. I was very attached to him by the end of the story and that played a huge part in how emotionally invested I was in that ending.Award debacle or not, Shine is a brilliant contemporary novel with just enough mystery to draw me over to the contemporary side. (I don't normally go for those). I like that fate dropped a shiny, fat reminder in my lap that I had been interested in this book earlier this year. I think the debacle will help get Shine on other people's radars as well and for this I am thankful. I believe that Lauren Myracle was quite classy in the way she handled the entire hoopla and I hope that the end result is much more positive for her than if the book was actually nominated.As a side note - what drew me to the book originally was how stunning the cover is. There is something about the way those colours blend together that is absolutely breathtaking to me. When I did click on the book for more information, it was all because of the cover. The book, in real life, is even more stunning. That same image of the tree with the flower is used at the start of every chapter. The entire image in the background is used to depict the change in days. The entire art experience for this book is so luscious and thick that I can't stop looking at the book, over and over, as it sits on the table next to me. I think this is one of the prettiest books I have ever owned.Buy your own copy! AmazonUS
